Luckily, we needn’t speak of it, but I think back two falls ago when everything smelled wrong and alive, and he was prancing about and forgetting to act wolfish, spending every other thought wondering why it could not just be April. I thought he was being ridiculous…or maybe just pretending I thought so, since I can’t deny I understood perfectly. We needn’t now mention this cruellest season to each other (or any season), and instead wait quietly to hear the words whose breath we already smell, and whose vibrations we have sensed radiating through so many days.

Frustrating that in waiting on words, I have to admit that they are stupid things…I often would like to speak them, but to speak things seems the surest way to murder them in their sleep. So I must be content to say nothing, and to hold the gaze of those yellow-grey eyes and just know.